Microwave Popcorn and Oranges
"We can eat microwave popcorn and oranges because there is no way Nana can drug us if that is all we eat," my mom proudly proclaimed. This was her latest idea in a series of terrible ideas that ended up getting us getting kicked out of Nana and Papa's house into the cold, snowy winter.
When my mom decided we would not eat the food Nana was providing anymore, I was so hungry I could barely sleep. I was a growing teenage girl and still training for my upcoming track season. I would sneak up to the kitchen and eat anything I could find after my mom had gone to bed in the basement. I remember feeling anxious I would wake Nana who might go into a rage about me sneaking around in her kitchen after dark and afraid I would wake my mom who couldn't believe I would risk being drugged by my grandma by eating something that my mom hadn't deemed "safe."
I do not know if Nana was actually drugging my mom and me and I likely never will. I do know my mom was paranoid. I do know my Nana gave my cousins and me cough syrup when we were not sick when we were little, just because she wanted us to go to sleep. And I do know my mom and Nana were nurses. If Nana wanted to "calm us down," she would know how to "safely" dose us.
My mom was so difficult to be around that almost anyone who lived with her would have loved to have had a way to chemically relax her. I understand why my Nana would have taken this approach although I still do disagree with it. I used humor and the most extreme people pleasing ever (and it was not always effective), but most people would not readily agree with every conspiracy theory my mom spewed. "It is a very real possibility you are related to the Kennedy family, mom." And, "Yeah, I think you are messaging the real Justin Bieber about his depression on Twitter," were some of the placating lies I told.
About a week into this creative starvation diet developed by my mom, I could not hit the paces I was trying to run for a training workout for my spring track season. I was heading into my senior year, so this was frustrating. No matter what chaos my mom had gotten us into, usually I could control my running. I turned the sauna on at Nana and Papa's and went in the sauna and then tried to go back on the treadmill to run the workout again. I still could not hit my prescribed workout splits. This is not surprising if you understand exercise physiology. As a high school kid, I did not understand that it would be quite difficult for anyone who had been starving for a week to run an intense workout. I got angry at myself for not trying hard enough and not being strong enough. When I finally gave up after the second attempt to run the workout, I returned to the sauna and showered off. Feeling a deep rage I was ashamed to feel, I grabbed the shower head in the sauna, pulling on it, wishing I could rip it off the wall to release my anger. I wished I could scream. I knew I could not damage the shower head and I knew that I could not let anyone (particularly my mom) witness my anger for how I was being treated and what I was going through.
Just under a year ago, I felt this rage again when my ex was controlling and manipulating me. I was out on a run that did not "go well" according to some standard I made up. I slammed my hand against the Porta potty wall hard enough to hurt my hand in frustration.
I know now that this was not about the running. It never had been, even when I was young. This rage I internalized was directed at my running because it felt like something I should be able to control, and it felt like a way the anger could safely escape my body. I am mad at myself for not being good enough, I thought both times. But now that I have excaped both circumstances of abuse, I no longer punish myself for "bad" workouts. I no longer long to break something with that embarrassing depth of anger. I could only escape the anger and the resulting self harm by getting myself out of the abusive situations.
We were kicked out of my Nana and Papa's house shortly after I yanked on the shower head. My mom and I had were hiding from my Nana's drunken rage in the basement laundry room, when Papa came in to yell at us to get jobs. I took it personally, thinking I should do more than my high school work and competitive running. I was sorting through letters from the colleges recruiting me for athletics as he screamed at us. I was trying to see which college would be the best fit and had landed on West Point. It seemed like the most prestigious escape, outside of the Ivy Leagues.
When I toured the West Point campus, I subconsciously realized that this was not the place for me. I went ahead with planning to attend until the last minute. For some reason, a month before I was supposed to fly to West Point, I decided I could not stand the way they forced the women to wear their hair. I would not wear my hair in a low bun. But that was just the surface reason that stopped me. I had been intimidated by the men popping in to "see the new recruit." There were so few women there. And I was shocked at how exhausted the female athletes were, waking at 5am and not getting to bed before 10pm because of schoolwork. Even at that age, I loved my sleep. Teammates at the college I did eventually attend for my first year (NDSU) made so much fun of my 9:30pm bedtime.
Nana and Papa kicked us out into the snowy winter shortly after he had been in the laundry room to scream at us. I scrambled to think through who could come and pick us up before we would get frost bitten. So much for just planning for college like the rest of my classmates. I had a mom to take care of.